Is Libya Going Down The Same Islamist Path As Iraq?

The following by  Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is reposted here with permission:

Libyan Islamists and the security forces: Iraq 2.0?

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
The Jerusalem Post
September 5, 2012

http://www.meforum.org/3331/libya-islamists-security-forces

The Libyan elections in July that saw a poor performance on the part of Islamist parties were justifiably hailed by many commentators, who saw Libya as a notable exception to the theory of a universal regional ascendancy for the Islamists. I myself had wrongly predicted that the Islamists would gain the lion's share of the votes.

However, the election results should not lead to complacency.

As Reuters reports, armed Islamists have demolished Sufi shrines in Tripoli and Ziltan, with Libya's Interior Minister Fawzi Abdel A'al affirming that he would not want the security forces to engage in an armed confrontation with these religious radicals.

Why Libya May Escape The Islamist Fate Of Egypt

The following by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is reposted here with permission:

Rethinking Libya

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
The American Spectator
July 12, 2012

http://www.meforum.org/3284/rethinking-libya

Pace the expectations of numerous commentators, including my own, Islamist factions have not emerged to dominate the Libyan election results. Instead, the National Forces Alliance (NFA) -- a coalition led by the former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril -- has outmaneuvered the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Watan party led by Abdelhakim Belhadj, who once headed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that was affiliated with al Qaeda.

The Islamist factions are hoping to dominate the political process through the remaining 120 seats in the Libyan congress open to candidates who are at least nominally independent, but tally results so far suggest that even in areas where Islamists are thought to have stronger influence than in the rest of the country (e.g. the eastern city of Darna), the Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Construction Party performed poorly against the NFA.

For a fuller overview of results, see an online report by the Libya Herald, which illustrates that the defeat was even more crushing for the al-Watan party.

All this indicates my assessment last October that "it is becoming increasingly apparent that Islamism will be the dominant political force in the country" has turned out to be incorrect.

It was not unreasonable to express concerns regarding the influence the likes of Belhadj initially held during the interim period under the National Transitional Council (NTC), but where did I get Libya wrong?

Barry Rubin: Senator John McCain (Ignorantly) Backs Islamist-Dominated Syrian Opposition Leaders

Senator John McCain (Ignorantly) Backs Islamist-Dominated Syrian Opposition Leaders

By Barry Rubin

Also you can read Barry Rubin's new article, Is Libya An Islamist State?


I’ve warned that the Obama Administration, through the Islamist Turkish government, has produced a majority Islamist leadership. Let me emphasize this point: the Syrian people didn’t chose this exile leadership, the American president and his colleagues did. And in my articles I warned that support would soon pour in from Westerners who had no idea they were promoting a ftuture anti-American Islamist Syria

It is vital to understand that Syria is different from Libya, Tunisia and Egypt. A revolutionary Islamist regime is not inevitable. There are plenty of moderates and those non-Muslims or non-Arabs loyal first and foremost to their own community (Druze, Christians, Kurds, tribes, and even potentially Alawites) who don’t want Islamism. That’s why this disaster is avoidable and all the more strategic sin on the Obama Administration for making an unnecessary catastrophe more likely.

In historical terms, it would be as if the Western powers helped create and back a Communist-dominated opposition council in pre-revolutionary Russia even though the Bolsheviks weren’t in the majority.

Barry Rubin: Will Libya Be A Radical Islamist State?

Will Libya Be A Radical Islamist State?

This article is modified from Barry Rubin's piece in the Daily Caller based on new information.

By Barry Rubin

During the Cold War's early years of the 1950s and 1960s , U.S. policy backed Saudi Arabia and other traditionalist regimes to counter the radical,anti-Western nationalist forces that seemed set to conquer the region. The radicals generally dominated Egypt, Iraq, and Syria from the mid-1950s, while the more pious Muslim regimes included Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, Libya and Jordan.

That strategy made sense. The argument was that pious Muslims would never be Communists and that the monarchies were indeed horrified by the overthrow of kings to set up radical republics. While there were some radical Islamist forces then--the Muslim Brotherhood, the networks organized by the former Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Hussaini, and in Pakistan--they were quite weak in comparison to these two blocs.

But that was a long time ago. Today, the threat is revolutionary Islamism, not Communism, and the cure is either traditionalism, moderate nationalism, communal nationalism, or liberal democratic thinking.